Sun letting resellers bypass its long-time NZ agent

By ADAM GIFFORD

Sun Microsystems is offering its New Zealand resellers the chance to bypass long-time domestic agent SolNet and buy direct.

Sun is also recruiting a New Zealand sales force and channel manager.

Its previous New Zealand workforce consisted of a country manager, Rod Severn, and a team of about 25 technicians who did "break fix" repairs on hardware and operating systems.

Sun representatives in Auckland and Wellington will talk directly to high-end customers and a systems engineer will support their pre-sales efforts. Direct sales and associated services will still be left to partners. "I am looking for ambassadors," Severn said.

"Sun has a lot of faith in the New Zealand market and sees room for growth and room for improvement. We are rolling out the iForce global programme here, and offering it to the rest of the Sun partners."

There are 57 registered Sun resellers, including companies such as Eagle, Datacom, Fujitsu. Gen-i, EDS, Unisys and IBM Global Services.

"I expect only two or three will take it up. The rest will continue to deal through SolNet," Severn said.

iForce partners need to be certified and to keep their staff trained in the latest Sun technology.

Apart from SolNet, the only reseller who buys from Sun now is ComputerLand, which has just started a midrange server division under former SolNet national sales manager John Hanna.

In September, Solnet bought out Hanna's 750,000 shares in the company for an undisclosed price.

SolNet managing director Mark Botherway said the Sun changes should not be seen as a vote of no confidence in his company.

"Sun has had sales staff here before. Now they are looking for a couple of business development roles to improve demand for Sun products."

The arrangement SolNet has with Sun means other resellers buy equipment from SolNet at the same price they would pay Sun, so any decision about whether they should take up the iForce offer would come down to what additional value they think they can offer customers. Botherway said SolNet had exceeded its targets for the first quarter ended September 30, helped by major sales to National Bank, Inland Revenue and telecommunications customers.

He conceded revenue from the Auckland market was down, but said that in part was because SolNet now counted revenue from Telecom in its Wellington office figures.

Combined revenues for Sun and SolNet were $95 million for the year ending June 30.

Worldwide, Sun is facing challenges to its business as many customers switch from large servers to clusters of commodity Intel-based servers.